One last tease, Marilyn Grein

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I
know exactly what you'd be saying right now,
Marilyn Grein.

“Frank, you're not going to tell them
that story?”

Well, of course I am, dear. In fact, I'm going to tell them a few. Unfortunately, since you left us so suddenly on Saturday morning, I won't get to hear you call me up and say, “I can't
believe you told them that!”

You were already beloved in south Orange County when I became responsible for editing your Business Watch column and for general oversight of you in your receptionist role. Not that I fooled myself into thinking anyone could have exercised any oversight. Still, I liked teasing you, catching you at your little games.

Like the time I was driving down Alicia Parkway and saw that baby blue junker of an Olds you used to drive parked in front of your hairdresser's when you told me you were running a business errand.

Or that afternoon I was standing within earshot in the newsroom and one of the advertising gals who didn't realize who I was came up and whispered to you, “Think you can sneak out early and go to Reagan's?” as you frantically shook your head to get her to shut up.

Truth is, you worked so hard for so relatively little, any little holiday was more than justified.

You indeed liked your pubs, whether they were just down Jeronimo Road or across the Atlantic. All those trips to England – you think I didn't know what that was about? Pubbery as a way of life. That blond beehive. I'll bet you drove all those old chaps crazy.

What was it, 1993? It was my first
supervisory job and I pretended to be stern, but who was I kidding? You were beloved not just by everybody in the newsroom, but by the community and the people who ran those mom-and-pops you wrote about. You were the face of the Saddleback Valley News and the Register in South County. With no journalism training whatsoever you achieved something that eludes many professionals: The readers felt a connection to you.

On the other hand, if some startup pasta-maker in an El Toro Road strip mall tells you he is on the verge of a four-star rating, do you think you could perhaps gently suggest he
might be exaggerating? Just once could I see a little skepticism? OK, I tortured you, but I think you got better. And you dogged that Kmart closure story like you worked for The Wall Street Journal.

To be sure, you returned the grief, probably no more so than when you threatened to seduce my widowed father. (I think this was right after your breakup with the Las Vegas mattress salesman.) Becoming my stepmother would relieve you of my nagging since I could no longer be your boss.

It was not so far-fetched that it didn't cause me a little worry then, although I now realize I couldn't have done better.

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